“... way his generation is going; what he hasn’t got is a language to make us sit up and listen. Will Self’s idiolect is more inventive than Bracewell’s; the suavely metaphorical turn of his prose and the yawning insolence of his tone are far more captivating. But Cock & Bull has none of Bracewell’s amiability. It consists of two novellas, the one the ...”

“... is at once subject and object of his or her narrative, a fissured soul striving impossibly for self-coincidence, for that magical moment when the writing subject and the subject written of will merge into an imaginary whole. The prototype of this process is Oedipus, the detective in pursuit of the criminal who is himself. Michael Owen starts out as the ...”

“... and personality, is somehow more reassuring and constant than her relation to her own remembered self. Mirror Writing discussed dandyism and style informally, as one of the ways in which identity is constructed. Adorned in Dreams continues and considerably extends this discussion in much more concrete terms. The book is, as she says, an attempt ‘to view ...”

“... flirtations. Their political compromises, endlessly reviewed, may have exhibited naivety or self-regard. But much of that record is still educative, and the argument did take place under real pressure from anti-semitic and authoritarian enemies. Today, the alleged ‘neo-conservative’ movement around Jeane Kirkpatrick, Commentary and the New Criterion ...”

“... its influence on western thinking. In the latter, she suggested that to be human is ‘To name the self, the world, and God’, and that this power of naming has been stolen from women, now as much as in the Adamic myth. Gyn/Ecology extends that argument and is, as she says of its title, ‘a way of wrenching back some word-power’. This involves linguistic ...”

“... in fostering a new, virulently anti-Soviet ‘politics of interest’ – or, some would say, self-interest. I’d also heard that he was becoming very fierce about gays, dykes and nukes – indeed, any new or fashionable grouping that got in the way of the immediate and pressing task of rebuilding American morale. It was easy to see, then, that he was ...”

“... that achieved that must be celebrating its triumph; why won’t it let me join in? [Of his self-hatred] This opinion is my only good point. [Of suicide] If you were capable of it, you certainly wouldn’t need it. [Of the TB which was to kill him] It’s a special illness which has been, if you like, conferred preferentially, quite unlike any ...”

“... to give us an account of ourselves. The nub of Taylor’s position is the claim that man is a ‘self-interpreting animal’. One way in which a human agent differs from other animals is by the possession of a conception of himself, an understanding of who he is and what he is doing. An agent’s self-understanding is not ...”

“... unity at times of crisis for being both apolitical and personal. By drawing to his or her fallible self a lot of the popular enthusiasm that might otherwise be bestowed on charismatic vote-winners, the monarch has helped to prevent the emergence of Caesarist dictatorships of various kinds. During the Second World War, while Hitler projected his power through ...”

“... stooped, gazing through the viewfinder or bent over the developing tray, even though in his self-portraits he is a paragon of ‘uprightness’, short and muscular, with an obvious liking for the gym. Within a few years of independence he was running a studio in Bobo Dioulasso, 350 km west of the capital Ouagadougou, and building up a remunerative ...”

“... trying to convince herself it doesn’t matter that she is not as pretty as Sara Ludlow. But her self-hatred is revealed in a bizarre scene in her bedroom, when she uses her teddy bears to enact a Jerry Springer role-play that culminates in her fantasising her own death. Jessica’s male counterpart is Claude, an ex-coke addict obsessed with weapons, who ...”

“... trends, restraining reckless middle age. The novelty of 19th-century generationalism lay in a new self-consciousness about generational differences, and a desire to discover in them some historical dynamic. The result was a good deal of tediously abstract speculation about the length of a generation, the manner in which it acquired its characteristics, and so ...”

“... After all, their function is to provide myths for scribblers. And who cares anyway? – the self-justifying memoirs of today’s criminals soon turn to dusty junk. Who can blame Biggs for cynicism after his attempt to come clean with the Daily Express and thereby give himself up, only to be instantly betrayed and done out of his agreed £35,000 by the ...”

“... life but preserved a haughty independence which people mistook for humility.’ In an early self-portrait, now held at the National Portrait Gallery, she stands, hand on hip, appraising the viewer. Her gaze is firm and her face, which is interesting and not exactly plain, offers us something like a challenge. John sets her reddish hair against a dark ...”

“... Sir Peter Moores.To celebrate its twentieth anniversary, Compton Verney has mounted The Reflected Self: Portrait Miniatures, 1540-1850 (until 23 February). Spread across three large rooms, the exhibition tells the story of the portrait miniature in Britain using pieces from the Dumas Egerton Trust and Grantchester Collections as well as loans from many ...”